Blindsided

Tom Wolford. Daddy Warbucks. The old days and the first foot in the door. It had been a long time since Logan had looked that far back. Now that looking forward wasn’t an option, maybe he could afford the luxury of reminiscing every now and then. It had been, what—almost five years since they’d last spoken? He should call Tom and— Logan blinked and frowned. “Did you say was?”

She nodded ever so slightly and her smile looked tired. “He passed away a little over a month ago. A heart attack.”

“Unless he’d changed a lot in the last fourteen years,” Logan said as his throat tickled, “it couldn’t have been an unexpected one.”

Catherine Talbott’s smile faded on a sigh and shrug of her slim shoulders. “No, it really wasn’t. Still…”

Logan silently swore and kicked himself. “I’m sorry,” he offered sincerely. “I can be a real clod sometimes. Tom was a decent man. I owe him a lot and I’m sorry he’s gone.”

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Catherine Talbott managed a slightly brighter smile. “I was hoping you’d feel that way.”

Duh! his brain groaned. The memorial plaque. The endowment of some fund for underprivileged kids’ sports. He’d been tapped for such things before. It came with making the pro ranks. He knew the drill from beginning to end. “Oh, yeah?” he drawled, wondering how much she had in mind. “Why?”

“Tom left me the team.”

As responses went, it didn’t even come close to his expectations. “You own the Wichita Warriors?” he asked, having a hard time getting his brain wrapped around the image of Shirley Temple sitting behind Tom’s huge metal desk.

“Yes, I do.”

The assurance didn’t help one bit. “What does Millie think of that?”

“Well… She’s…”

The obvious hesitation sent a cold jolt through his veins. “Millie’s not dead, too, is she?”

“No, no,” she hurriedly answered. “My sister-in-law is very much alive.” She hesitated and took a noticeably deep breath before she added, “But she has dementia. There are good days and there are not so good days.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he offered again, thinking that he was beginning to sound a little too much like a parrot. A socially retarded parrot. He used to be a lot better at this sort of thing.

“It’s one of the risks of growing old,” she went on. “You don’t have much choice except to deal with what life gives you. Tom provided well for her, though. Millie doesn’t want for anything now, and there’s money to see her through even a long decline. She’s not going to be pushing a grocery cart around town and eating out of Dumpsters.”

Millie eat out of Dumpsters? Never. Not even demented. Where Tom had been the loud impresario, Millie had been the perfect princess. “That’s good to know. I can’t tell you how many Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter dinners I had at Millie’s house. She always made sure that we weren’t alone those days.”

“She still does the bring-all-your-friends spreads. With a little help now, of course. We did a backyard brat and potato salad affair when all the players came in for the new season.”

God, it was so small-town, so Wichita. So incredibly minor league. “I’ll bet everyone had a real good time.”

She nodded and then her smile faded on another sigh. “Until Tom collapsed.”

Oh shit. He should have seen it coming. The nod followed by the sigh was the tip-off. He couldn’t offer apologies again. He just couldn’t. He’d choke to death if he even tried. “So,” he ventured, then cleared his throat as subtly as he could. “How are the Warriors doing these days?”

“Well,” she drawled, “that depends on your perspective, I suppose.”

Uh-oh. Evasion was never a good sign. She was working up to something. The something that had brought her halfway across the country. And odds were it wasn’t to hit him up for a memorial contribution. “You’re a month into the season. What’s the win-loss record?”

“Two wins, ten losses,” she supplied with a little grimace.

Bad. Really bad. “Why are they losing?”

“I wish I could tell you, Mr. Dupree, but I don’t know anything about hockey.”

Gee, there was a surprise. “What are your GM and coaching staff saying?” he pressed.

She seemed to chew the inside of her cheek as she stared off over the water. “That it’s not their fault,” she finally answered. “That Tom didn’t spend enough to get the talent necessary to win.”

Yeah, it was usually someone else’s fault. And dead guys made perfect scapegoats. “Is it true?”

“Looking at the books,” she replied, still staring off, “I’d have to say that he spent all that he could. And then some.”

And then some? There it was. The Warriors were in financial trouble and as the club’s poster boy for Big Dreams, he was the logical choice for White Knight, too. “Let’s cut to the chase, Ms. Talbott,” he said firmly. “Why are you here? What do you want from me? A bailout?”

Her gaze came back to his with a snap and a blink. “Well, yes. In a—”

“How much to take the ink from red to black?” he demanded, not caring that he sounded irritated. He was irritated.

“I don’t want your money, Mr. Dupree,” she challenged as she squared her shoulders and her blue eyes flashed icy fire. “I want your talent. And I’m willing to pay you for it.”

She couldn’t afford to pay him so much as a nickel on his NHL dollars. “My talent at what?”

“I’ve had two offers for the franchise. Both of them reasonable and fair considering the shape it’s in.”

How had they gone from him bailing out the team to her selling it? Talk about conversational whiplash. “You should signal left turns before you make them,” he growled.

Another sigh. “I know. I’m bad about that.” Another little heave of her shoulders. Another pointless effort to tuck her curls behind her ears. “Here’s my thinking on it all,” she said, holding her hands in front of her like a balance scale. “I could sell tomorrow and walk away with a lot more than I have now. But if I did, I’d be selling out Tom’s hopes and expectations. I have a problem with that on a personal level. I’d feel much better about it if I could improve the franchise before I let it go. Tom couldn’t be disappointed then. Does that make sense?”

It did. But in the most dangerous sort of way. If that was the full scope of her reasoning, the woman was playing a high-stakes game listening to her heart, not her head. And that was a guaranteed way to fail. He looked away from the big blue eyes that were so earnestly searching his. “Do you have experience in running any kind of business?”

“I’ve organized several successful charity events.”

He waited for her to toss out the next item on her résumé. All he got were the sounds of the marina. “That’s it?”

“I have a master’s degree in Sociology,” she offered brightly. “And I’m an expert in robbing Peter to pay Paul. No one does it better.”

What the hell had Tom been thinking? Millie, even with her marbles rattling loose, could do a better job than this little socialite. Had Tom lost it, too? “Let’s go back,” Logan said tightly. “What do you want from me?”

“I understand that you’re something of a legend in the minor leagues.”

Yeah, he was a legend there. In the majors, too. But not for the reason he wanted. In two years the only memory of him was going to be the moment when his eye tumbled out of its socket on national television. “Nail the point, Ms. Talbott. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to coach the Warriors this season.”

He gripped the arms of his chair, trying to keep himself from falling out. Step back twenty years? Start all over from nowhere? He’d never in his life wanted to coach. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not.”

She certainly seemed sane. And sober. “Give up kicking back in the Florida sun and surf,” he posed dryly, “to spend the winter riding a broken-down bus across the windswept, frozen prairie with a bunch of third-rate hockey players. Would you go for an offer like that?”

“Actually,” she said, with a fleeting, weak smile, “if you don’t, I’m going to have to.”